medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Charalampus (also Charalampes; in ancient Greek, also Charalampios; in transliterated modern Greek, Charalambos, Charalampos, Haralampos) is said both in his legendary Passiones (BHG 298-298e) and in the Synaxary of Constantinople to have been a very elderly priest at Magnesia (in some texts he's its bishop) who was martyred under an emperor Severus. The latter has to be Septimius Severus, whose persecution began in 202. But which Magnesia? Modern potted accounts of this saint divide with equal assurance between the Magnesia in Thessaly and Magnesia on the Maeander in Asia Minor. The latter was in the province of Asia, one of the places where the Severan persecution is reported to have been oppressive. So was the apparently lesser known Magnesia on Sipylus (today's Manisa in Turkey), situated in the same province, seemingly at least as good a candidate as its homonym on the Maeander.
This uncertainty, which goes hand in hand with the absence both of any identified late antique cult locale for Charalampus and of any witness to the existence of his story prior to the tenth century, makes him pretty much a figure of legend. In the Passiones he is tortured several times, works miracles, and by his example converts others to Christianity; at different points in the story his oppressors are punished only to be forgiven by him. In the end, he receives the grace to die just before he is to be decapitated (so the Passiones; in his notice in the Synaxary of Constantinople he is executed). Baptus (also called Dauktos) and Porphyrius are Roman soldiers who at an early torture session convert and are then executed; three unnamed women round out this saint's legendary companions in martyrdom. Byzantine-rite churches include all five in their commemorations of Charalampus; so does the revised Roman Martyrology of 2001, though in other instances it has been less accommodating to such stock-figure members of a hagiographic supporting cast.
Some exterior views of the originally twelfth-century portion of the church of Ag. Charalambos in Kalamata (Messenia regional unit) in the southwestern Peloponnese:
http://tinyurl.com/8757nbfhttp://tinyurl.com/6udvh74http://tinyurl.com/6tb4qjdhttp://tinyurl.com/77bzy4s
Charalampus became very popular in the Early Modern period, when he was viewed as a protector against plague. Purported relics of him exist all over today's Greece. What is said to be his head is at St. Stephen's monastery at Meteora. The monastery of the Great Cave at Kalavryta displays a hand said to be his:
http://tinyurl.com/jr2f6ks
Some period-pertinent images of Charalampus of Magnesia:
a) as depicted (at left; at center, St. Leo of Catania; at right, St. Sophronius) in a twelfth-century vault fresco in the church of the Theotokos in the monastery of Hosios Loukas near Distomo in Phokis:
http://tinyurl.com/hlk8o7k
b) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) in the nave of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/yacgdy4
c) as depicted (martyrdom) in the mid-sixteenth-century frescoes (1546/47) by George / Tzortzis the Cretan in the Dionysiou monastery on Mt. Athos:
http://tinyurl.com/joh833b
Best,
John Dillon
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